Posts in the category «Local & Regional» :

إدمان السيارات

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa
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في العشر سنوات الماضية، تم بناء عدد قياسي من الطرق السريعة خارج وداخل المدن وتوسعة عدد كبير من الطرق السريعة لإضافة المزيد من الحارات، أدت إضافة المزيد من الحارات إلى زيادة السرعة على الطرق.

أدى ذلك إلى زيادة الاعتماد على السيارات، مما أدى إلى تغيير شكل المدينة وتخطيطها، فتم بناء المزيد من المجتمعات العمرانية البعيدة مما زاد مسافات التنقل، وتم تخصيص المزيد من الأراضي للطرق السريعة.

قُطعت الأشجار لتوسعة الطرق وهدمت منازل الفقراء لزيادة …

ركوب العجل في القاهرة

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa
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في 2010، قررت الأعتماد على العجلة كوسيلة مواصلات شخصية أساسية، السواقة في القاهرة مش منطقية خصوصاً لو الشغل على بعد 5 إلى 8 كم، الزحام وصل لمرحة صعبة والركنة بتعصب.

في البداية كنت خايف جداً، فاكر أول مرة عديت الشارع وأنا على العجلة بعد ما خرجت من المحل .. كنت مرعوب حاسس أن العربيات هاتخبطني على طول لكن بسرعة لاحظت أني ظاهر في الطريق أكتر من ما كنت متخيل وبسبب سواقة الناس العشوائية لازم يكونوا واعيين …

Lessons from Chernobyl

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa
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Cover of the Book Chernobyl, A History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy. The cover is mainly a photograph of a nuclear power plant dashboard

Yesterday I finished reading Chernobyl, A History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy. I enjoyed reading the first part of the book, which detailed the events leading up to, during and after the explosion. The later parts of the book were informative, detailing the political changes that followed.

Here are my main takeaways from the book:

  • Nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs are the same in terms of how they work. They both use the nuclear …

Smoking Culture in Egypt

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa
languages: [en] ar

This post is not about a specific smoking culture that is unique to Egypt, but rather how smoking as a set of attitudes, beliefs and behaviours is widely accepted here. I will try to summarise my experiences with smokers, their attitudes, their relationship with public space and non-smokers.

This post is also an appeal to smokers. If you are a smoker reading this, I am appealing to the kinder side of you. I want to …

A Literal Pyramid Scheme

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa

An artist called JR has created a NFT for his installation at an exhibition at the Great Pyramids of Giza.

For his Egypt installation, JR divided the work’s image file into 4,591 pieces, and determined that each individual piece will be collectible as an NFT. “Thanks to technology and NFTs, it is the first time that anyone can actually collect a piece of the public artwork,” the artist wrote on Instagram.

In general …

Seen from space: What Egyptian day labourers have done in 48 years

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa

image0

Often accused of indolence, Egyptian day labourers have contributed a lot to Cairo in the past 48 years. They are never paid decent wage or made to feel secure. Nor can the majority of them afford decent housing. This unprecedented slavery wasn't for a grand project like the Suez canal, it's for the rich to build gated bubbles or to make more money. 80% of all the new developments are left uninhabited.

Let's Map Qursaya

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa

Photo of Qursaya

The government has complete monopoly over data and information. There may be hope that this may change with the draft Freedom of Information law, but this is unlikely. National security concerns will always stand in the way of getting complete information.

You can buy from the Egyptian Survey Authority (ESA) maps of any area in Egypt in great detail, except areas deemed sensitive. For this, people are referred to the military survey authority, which can …

A 210 year old map of Cairo on Google Earth

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa

Bibliotheca Alexandrina is hosting an interesting site called Memory of Modern Egypt which contains scans of photographs, documents and maps from 1800 till now.

They have a low resolution scan of a map of Cairo from 1800 in French. The city is the darker area. Notice the flood basin surrounding the Nile and how the Zamalek island looks weird compared to the Roda island (Manial) which looks almost like what it really looks like.

Map of Cairo from 1800

Overlaying …

The NDP Synagogue 2

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa

Lina Attalah and Mohamed El Dahshan of Al-Masry Al-Youm followed up on my post about the Magen Abraham synagogue that was turned into an NDP office in Hadayeq el-Quba. They did a very good job in finding answers to many of the questions regarding why this building is in such a horrible state.

the interior of hte synagogue

“This temple was built by the Adda family,” says Carmen Weinstein, president of the Egyptian Jewish Community Council (JCC).

"The Adda's were …